Nearly every business utilizes a measurable amount of paper documents. These businesses include law firms, accounting firms, medical offices, insurance companies, building contractors, manufacturers, retailers, etc. Moreover, it is well known that government agencies are prone to extreme usages of paper. Many of these businesses and government agencies must capture information from the paper documents, copy them for exchange, and/or maintain an archive of at least a portion of the documents that they use or otherwise encounter—either by storing copies of the paper documents or by creating electronic archives.
Copying these documents and capturing information from the paper documents can be very expensive and very labor intensive. It has been estimated that each year nearly two-hundred and fifty billion dollars ($250 B) are spent world wide on data entry, i.e., the manual entering of information from paper documents. However, with all this money spent, information is captured from only five percent (5%) of the available documents. Further, it has been also estimated that world wide there are nearly one-hundred million (100 M) unique books that are not available in electronic form. Currently, there are ongoing book scanning projects that utilize planetary scanners, flat bed scanners, and pass-through scanners to create electronic databases from these books using imaging techniques and optical character recognition (OCR) software to “read” the ink printed on the pages of the books. These same scanners are also being used to scan documents and electronically capture all or a portion of the information printed on the documents to create databases therefrom.
Planetary scanners typically use a digital imaging device mounted on an arm such that the imaging device faces down. A book can be opened face-up beneath the imaging device and each page can be individually scanned into the database. Planetary scanners are relatively expensive and using them to scan individual books is very time intensive. For example, it can take nearly three hours to scan a single book having three hundred pages. Planetary scanners are not typically used to scan loose documents.
Flat bed scanners can be used to scan loose documents and books. Loose documents can be fed manually or mechanically to the scanner and then scanned therein. With a mechanical feeder, e.g., an automatic paper feeder, and a very fast scan time, up to two hundred pages per minute can be scanned. However, a machine with such capabilities can cost as much as one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000). Also, to prevent damage to the paper feeder, the scanner, or the documents, great care must be taken to remove any staples and/or paperclips that may be included in the documents.
When using a flat bed scanner to scan books, each book is opened and placed face down on a transparent scan bed. An internal scanning device moves beneath the scan bed and scans the page of the book. Unfortunately, most books, e.g., those with bound spines, cannot be placed on the scan bed such that the page to be scanned is entirely flat. This results in an image that is bent, shadowy, and grey where the page bends into the spine of the book. Thus, data from the page is lost or inaccurately recognized by the OCR software. In order to correct this problem, a book that must be scanned can be taken apart, i.e., the pages can be separated from the spine and each other. The individual pages can be placed face down on the plenum and then scanned the same as loose documents. However, dismantling a book essentially renders it useless for future reading. Pass through scanners can also be used, but the books also have to be dismantled and individually fed to the scanner, either manually or mechanically.
The present invention has recognized these prior art drawbacks, and has provided the below-disclosed solutions to one or more of the prior art deficiencies.